Hector Berlioz, who died 150 years ago this year, is very much in the news in 2019 and we celebrate his visionary music with his Requiem, the opera Béatrice et Bénédict, the glorious song-cycle Les nuits d’été and two performances of the Symphonie fantastique. With another International Tchaikovsky Competition due this summer, our Young Artist returns to the 2015 competition’s Silver Medal winner, Lukas Geniusas, here playing Prokofiev’s Fifth Piano Sonata. The Masterclass finds the American baritone Thomas Hampson in Heidelberg putting some youngster through their paces in the world of song. With a new film on the French Colette just out, a chance to sample her as librettist in Maurice Ravel’s enchanting opera L’enfant et les sortilèges, filmed at Glyndebourne, and our Archive film this month is another opera, Carlo Maria Giulini conducting Verdi’s Falstaff at Covent Garden in Richard Eyre’s production lead by Renato Bruson. And a delightful little Documentary completes our February offering, a look at the work of the luthier Florian Leonhard.
